Drift Appalachia Shreds the Bluegrass State’s Mountain Roads Again for Special Stage Seven

The quiet, scenic foothills of Powell County, KY are used to hosting hikers and outdoorsy folks. Red River Gorge and its impressive natural bridge are one of the state’s most popular tourist destinations. The roads of the area, used to the bumper-sticker-clad Outbacks, Jeeps and 4Runners, wind their way up and between picturesque mountainsides, connecting small communities. Luckily for a hand-picked group of around 50 drifters, those same steep asphalt curves have also hosted them both this season and last.

The Drift Appalachia crew, in partnership with Backroads of Appalachia and local authorities, shut down around a mile of road for two days and let a roster made up of drivers from the grassroots level to professionals have their wicked way with an 11-turn course. With safety flaggers and media dudes dotting the side of the road, the first group of eight or nine drivers took off up the hill Friday morning for the first lap of DA’s Special Stage Seven with their chorus of exhaust notes echoing through the otherwise quiet hills.

“You’re all driving as a team out there… You can’t win here, but you can definitely lose,” said DA Motorsports Director Derek King during the morning’s drivers’ meeting. The stakes up on the mountain are about as high as they get, and all it would take to write a few cars off is one driver thinking they’re god’s gift to drifting and pushing beyond their limits. Luckily, the weekend’s roster didn’t include any heroes and the event went off without any major wrecks.

It didn’t take long for quite a few of the drivers to start looking comfortable. After a couple laps, we were already seeing some nice little trains. For some of these shredders, a sight lap just meant drifting a little closer to the middle line of the road instead of immediately putting their bumper on the guardrail.

This stage’s course, the same course as last year’s stop in Powell County, is notorious for its punishing rumble strips. With a strip running along both sides as well as the middle line, all it took was hitting them at just the right angle and speed for them to eat suspension components and tires. By Saturday afternoon, they were well fed.

Kevin Rozalski, behind the wheel of his E30, immediately started throwing down like he drives the road everyday. He was one of the standout drivers of the weekend, putting that iconic 80s styling in all the right places lap after lap, regardless of whether it was on the uphill or the downhill. He broke an axle early Friday, but had it swapped and was back ripping within an hour.

“My whole rear end is all tubed and I break axles all the time, I’m still on stock axles, so I kind of have all my tools just laid out and like my girlfriend and my buddy that's with me know the deal, so when I text them that I broke an axle, we can get it done in like ten minutes,” Rozalski said. “It's almost like changing tires at this point.”

With Friday’s driving concluded, everybody headed over to Callie’s Campground for this stage’s block party. Despite some heavy rain that created less-than-ideal conditions for driving on the campground’s gravel roads and parking on the grass, quite a few of the stage’s drivers came out and parked up, showing off their rides for a community that doesn’t have much in the way of import car culture.

The show drew what felt like a 50-50 combination of folks that were already drift enthusiasts and knew what they were looking at and people that happened to wander over to look at all the cars with tilty wheels and loud exhausts. Backroads of Appalachia organized a nice little drag strip for kids to race power wheels on, and Callie’s concession stands were cranking out pretty solid food and plenty of beverages. With the weather cleared up, it turned into a really nice, wholesome evening of parents and their kids checking out some very cool cars and chatting with some absolutely killer drivers.

It harked back to what Backroads Executive Director Erik Hubbard said during that morning’s drivers meeting, “We want our kids hooked on cars, not on dope.” In a region that was one of the hardest hit by the opioid epidemic, that goal really carries a lot of weight. For some of those kids, getting to see so many cool-ass cars and meeting some of the US’ most talented drivers really has the potential to create some of those sweet, sweet core memories that end up shaping our lives on down the road.

Rozalski broke his second axle of the weekend contributing to one of those core memories, after a kid from the neighborhood of his Airbnb hopped in the passenger seat for a little burnout. “This kid was like, mind blown. All the kids from the neighborhood came out to watch me and the car. The kid was showing everybody the video, just so excited,” he said.

Saturday morning rolled around and brought with it a little bit of a sketchy course. Friday night’s storms made for a patchy and wet road. Despite humidity that made it feel like you were treading water just standing on the side of the road and the dampness of the course, spirits were high in the pits and most everybody was chomping at the bit to get to driving.

“This reminds me of when I was learning to drift, and I think that was when I was having the most fun in drifting… It’s fun to be in the ‘lower level’ of drivers here, getting to learn from all these dudes,” said Kegan Leep. He’s far from a slouch behind the wheel of his LS-swapped 350Z, but that again speaks to the level of the stage’s roster. The mountain’s a whole new ball game.

With a day’s practice under their belts, a few drivers really got down to some hot-dogging. It didn’t take long for Andrew Lewis, behind the wheel of his red S13 coupe, to spot his pal Dan Sommer behind the guardrail at a flagger station. It just so happened that that spot sort of lent itself to a wide line that saw him putting his rear tires on the outside of the rumble strips and his bumper inches from the guardrail.

“I’m trying to make a ‘Do it for Dan’ shirt,” Lewis said.

Cash Staub, piloting his Foxbody Mustang, took a similar line, looking like he was trying to trim the small strip of grass between the road and the guardrail. The touge, by its very nature, is a game of inches. Staub and Lewis seemed hell-bent on making it a game of millimeters, showing off some seriously impressive precision driving that just so happened to be some of the weekend’s most exciting driving.

Jacob Duncan, just 18 years old and fresh out of high school, seemed to make it his mission to push the line as wide as he could, wherever he could. Unphased by having smoked a deer on his way back from Dairy Queen the night before, Duncan spent most of the day Saturday throwing crazy angle and making media dudes and flaggers question how close to the guardrails they should really be standing. It’s no wonder he wrote “If you’re not scared, you’re not going fast enough,” on his graduation cap just a couple weeks before the event.

Speaking of exciting driving, Matt Field and his C8 Corvette definitely dropped quite a few jaws up on the mountain. That car absolutely rips, and the exhaust note sounded incredible echoing through the trees. Even halfway up the mountain, you immediately knew when Field was part of a run group. Those 1,000+ naturally aspirated ponies created a lot of smiles over the course of the weekend, from spectators to Field and his passengers.

Powell County Judge/Executive Eddie Barnes was one of those passengers with a huge smile plastered on his face. “It’s undescribable. As far as the adrenaline, it’s just undescribable… My life is in his hands, and he did an excellent job,” he said. “The drivers are wonderful to work with. It’s an amazing experience.”

Beyond the raw, unique experience of riding shotgun in a one-of-a-kind drift car, Barnes also appreciated the event for its benefits to the community. He explained his role as being something like the CEO for the county, giving him important perspective on the economic and social impact of bringing events like these to communities like his.

“Hotels are full, Airbnbs are full, Callie’s was full… Powell County is one of the unfortunate counties with very little industry. Tourism is most of what we have,” Barnes explained. “Events like this show our kids that you can be whatever you want, whether it’s a doctor, a lawyer or a drifter.”

All in all, it was an absolutely killer weekend filled with some of the best drifting going. Whether it was the Top Garage shredders, Sean Booth and Adam LZ or Kiely Mackey and his big ‘ol Plymouth, every run was an exciting watch. There’s a reason so many drivers come away from a Drift Appalachia stage saying that it ruined other events for them. Not much can compare to driving that looks straight out of a video game.